Panasonic Should Be Applauded for their New Low Price 3 CCD Camcorders

by Robin Liss
Published on Mar 2, 2003 12:00 AM



For at least three years, the camcorder industry has been plagued by over-hyped camcorders which only upgraded the CCD resolution - not improving the video quality one bit. Although we haven't done side by side comparisons of Panasonic's new low priced 3 CCD camcorders, the PV-DV953 and PV-DV70, each $1,499 and $999 respectively - I really must applaud Panasonic for finally innovating with the imaging component in low priced consumer camcorders.

I would venture to guess that if you asked the average camcorder buyer, most would incorrectly say that the 'variable' that affects picture quality the most - is the number of pixels on a CCD. The correct answer is the size of the CCD and whether or not the camcorder has one or three CCDs. For the past three years, camcorder manufacturers have been catering to this misconception.

We began to see the obsession with high resolution CCDs around 2001. The Sony Digital8 DCR-TRV730 was the first consumer camcorder to include a Mega pixel CCD with a price tag under $1000. Although it carried an MSRP of $1,499 the Panasonic PV-DV851 was also a Mega pixel camcorder at around a $1,000 street price. The Canon Optura 100MC followed the same style offering a 1.33 Mega Pixel CCD.

Although higher resolution CCDs do improve still image quality, once the CCD breaks about 680K pixels, the video quality is unaffected. After the manufacturers realized that consumers could be sold on higher resolution CCDs which improved still quality instead of video quality - they indulged. Camcorder press releases now often headline with the pixel resolution of a camcorder - Sony took it to the extreme with the announcement of the first 2 Mega Pixel camcorder, the DCR-IP220. Manufacturers brag about 1,600 x 1,200 still resolution.

Before the announcement of the PV-DV953, all the camcorder manufacturers had been doing with regards to the CCDs was increasing their pixel count - knowing that most consumers would be receptive to this. However, Panasonic has taken the bold step of putting three CCDs in very inexpensive camcorders. Most consumers don't know the difference between 1 CCD and three, and thus it will be very hard to sell these camcorders from a marketing perspective. Of course, many will criticize Panasonic for putting very small 1/6 in. CCDs in the camcorder - but in the end they've done the right thing. Panasonic has finally made a move to begin placing three CCDs in sub $2000 camcorders. If these camcorders sell at least moderately well - it will force other manufacturers to examine this option. This is the first step to making consumer camcorders more like professional ones. However, we're not there yet. Next we've got to sell them on slightly larger camcorders with bigger sized CCDs - which will really improve video quality and low light performance.